Such a day was this in that girl's fate.

But the day was not yet gone! That morning, when she dressed for her enterprise of filial love, perhaps for the first time Sibyll Warner felt that she was fair--who shall say whether some innocent, natural vanity had not blended with the deep, devoted earnestness, which saw no shame in the act by which the child could aid the father?
Perhaps she might have smiled to listen to old Madge's praises of her winsome face, old Madge's predictions that the face and the gittern would not lack admirers on the gay ground; perhaps some indistinct, vague forethoughts of the Future to which the sex will deem itself to be born might have caused the cheek--no, not to blush, but to take a rosier hue, and the pulse to beat quicker, she knew not why.

At all events, to that ground went the young Sibyll, cheerful, and almost happy, in her inexperience of actual life, and sure, at least, that youth and innocence sufficed to protect from insult.

And now she sat down under the leafless tree to weep; and in those bitter tears, childhood itself was laved from her soul forever.
"What ailest thou, maiden ?" asked a deep voice; and she felt a hand laid lightly on her shoulder.

She looked up in terror and confusion, but it was no form or face to inspire alarm that met her eye.